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Carolina In The Morning is About Chapel Hill
by Charly Mann
Of all the songs that I associate with Chapel Hill, Carolina In The Morning is the one that I think best captures its essence: beauty and romance.
Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina in the morning,
No one could be sweeter than my sweetie when I meet her in the morning.
Where the morning glories
Twine around the door,
Whispering pretty stories
I long to hear once more.
Strolling with my girlie where the dew is pearly early in the morning,
Butterflies all flutter up and kiss each little buttercup at dawning,
If I had Aladdin's lamp for only a day,
I'd make a wish and here’s what I'd say:
Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina in the morning.
Indeed nothing could be finer than to be in Chapel Hill, and it is the one place most of us would wish to be at over any place on earth. German born, Tin Pan Alley songwriter, Gus Kahn wrote the lyrics to the song in 1922. His partner Walter Donaldson wrote the music. Over the years there has been debate about exactly which spot in Carolina the song is about, but I have always known it was Chapel Hill. After all UNC is Carolina, and Chapel Hill is UNC. And just as we all know James Taylor's Carolina In My Mind is not about South Carolina, Raleigh, Asheville, or Greensboro, the lyrics and sentiments of this song, only match a town with the dreamlike qualities of Chapel Hill.
A butterfly fluttering up to kiss buttercups in Chapel Hill
Carolina in The Morning is from a 1922 Broadway production called The Passing Show, and was sung by future I Love Lucy co-star William Frawley (Fred Mertz). Marion Harris, one of my favorite early singers, made the first recording of the song, and is probably most responsible for popularizing it.
I have included six of my favorite versions of the song here for you to listen to including the one by Marion Harris. As a treat there is included a live "bootleg" version of Phish doing it acappella.
Marion Harris's 1922 recording of Carolina in the Morning made the song popular
I have long considered Kahn to be one of the ten best lyriscists of all time. Among his other timeless materpieces are, I'll See You In My Dreams, Ain't We Got Fun, It Had To Be You, Dream a Little Dream Of Me, Makin' Whoopie, My Baby Just Cares For Me, Side by Side, Yes Sir, That's My Baby, Love Me Or Leave Me, Guilty, and my sentimental favorite, Charly My Boy.
Comments:
Pearly Gates
3:17 PM Thu 3/26/2009
I think James Taylor could do a great version of this song.
Fred Pace
8:17 AM Thu 3/26/2009
I had never connected the song Carolina in the Morning to Chapel Hill before, but I think it makes good sense.
Memphis Clark
4:28 PM Wed 3/25/2009
Where do you find these songs? I use to hear the Dean Martin version on WCHL, and once heard an awful version by Al Jolson when I was about 10. I'm now 93, and my granddaughter just played these for me.
A Gann
12:30 PM Wed 3/25/2009
Really nice piece. I'm thinking about moving to Chapel Hill from Pittsburgh, and this is pushing me more in your direction.
B Quicksilver
8:43 AM Wed 3/25/2009
My favorite is your second version by Daryl Sherman.
mikal
9:22 PM Tue 3/24/2009
I can't believe you got a photo of a butterfly with buttercups. Proof positive that the song is about Chapel Hill.
Brandon Lutz
8:08 PM Tue 3/24/2009
Thanks for finding the Phish version. Wonderful piece.
Chapel Hill is located on a hill whose only distinguishing feature in the 18th century was a small chapel on top called New Hope Chapel. This church was built in 1752 and is currently the location of The Carolina Inn. The town was founded in 1819, and chartered in 1851.
What is it that binds us to this place as to no other? It is not the well or the bell or the stone walls. or the crisp October nights. No, our love for this place is based upon the fact that it is as it was meant to be, The University of the People.
-- Charles Kuralt
Dark Side of the Hill -- Pink Floyd, the creators of the most popular album in history, Dark Side of the Moon, took the second half of their name from Floyd Council, a Chapel Hill native, and great blues singer and guitarist. He once belonged to a group called "The Chapel Hillbillies".
Check out Charly Mann's other website:
Oklahoma Birds and Butterflies
http://oklahomabirdsandbutterflies.com
Oklahoma Birds and Butterflies
http://oklahomabirdsandbutterflies.com
There would probably be no Chapel Hill if the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees in 1793 had not chosen land across from New Hope Chapel for the location of the university. By 1800 there were about 100 people living in thirty houses surrounding the campus.
The University North Carolina's first student was Hinton James, who enrolled in February, 1795. There is now a dormitory on the campus named in his honor.
The University of North Carolina was closed from 1870 to 1875 because of lack of state funding.
William Ackland left his art collection and $1.25 million to Duke University in 1940 on the condition that he would be buried in the art museum that the University was to build with his bequest. Duke rejected this condition even though members of the Duke Family are buried in Duke Chapel. What followed was a long and acrimonious legal battle between Ackland relatives who now wanted the inheritance, Rollins College, and the University of North Carolina, each attempting to receive the funds. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and in 1949 UNC was awarded the money for the museum. Ackland is buried near the museum's entrance. When the museum first opened, in the early sixties, there were rumors that his remains were leaking out of the mausoleum.
The official name of the Arboretum on the University of North Carolina campus is the Coker Arboretum. It is named after Dr. William Cocker, the University's first botany professor. It occupies a little more than five acres. It was founded in 1903.
Chapel Hill's main street has always been called Franklin Street. It was named after Benjamin Franklin in the early 1790s.
Chapel Hill High School and Chapel Hill Junior High were on Franklin Street in the same location as University Square until the mid 1960s.
The Colonial Drug Store at 450 West Franklin Street was owned and operated by John Carswell. It was famous for a fresh-squeezed carbonated orange beverage called a "Big O". In the early 1970s, I managed the Record and Tape Center next door, and must have had over 100 of those drinks. The Colonial Drug Store closed in 1996.
Sutton's Drugstore, which opened in 1923, has one of the last soda fountains in the South. It is one of the few businesses remaining on Franklin Street that was in operation when I was growing up in the 1950s.
Future President Gerald Ford lived in Chapel Hill twice. First when he was 24, in 1938, he took a law couse in summer school at UNC. He lived in the Carr Building, which was a law school dormitory. At the same time, Richard Nixon, the man he served under as Vice President, was attending law school at Duke. In 1942, Ford returned to Chapel Hill to attend the U.S. Navy's Pre-Flight School training program. He lived in a rental house on Hidden Hills Drive.
The late Tim McLaurin was living in Chapel Hill when he wrote the following in his autobiography, "Keeper of the Moon," but he was writing about a rural community just outside Fayetteville: "If indeed there exists a physical heaven, I hope it is patterned after North Carolina between the summer hours of six and eight a.m." (P. 19) And the inscription on the sundial declares that it's always morning somewhere in the world. So why not rein in the chauvinism a little and not assume that every good thing has to be centered in Chapel Hill?